


Fate’s Ballad

by 8ball



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Fluff, M/M, Past Lives, Temporary Character Death, ZoSan - Freeform, Zosan Secret Santa 2019, cuz you know past lives they die and live again, its really just zoro and sanji tho, lots and lots of softness, this is literally just a chance to spill my guts with some random soft zosan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:34:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21947410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8ball/pseuds/8ball
Summary: /my zosan secret santa 2019 gift for Cae!/“I missed you.”Sanji smiled in answer. This was only the beginning of their 92nd life together.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 35
Kudos: 449





	Fate’s Ballad

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays everyone! Especially to you Cae, I hope you like the fic and have an amazing holiday!

  
  


-oOo-

(92)

In this life, they called him a prophet. 

They said he had blue eyes because he saw across the seas. That he lived untouched in some dark corner of a world where only the worthy could find truth and his being. That if someone was impure and touched his skin, they would fall like water droplets and seep into the earth. 

Zoro called bullshit. He knew Sanji like the back of his own hand, like the hilts of his swords, and the man had rejected fortune telling like an overripe fruit. They had laughed together and often at religious spouting, and yet here, in this world, they called Sanji a prophet. 

It took weeks of sailing with untrustworthy crews and most of his money, but eventually Zoro found the island the rumors pointed to. He also wasn't living in an actual cave at all, just a house by the shore made of stone. 

He was waiting for Zoro at the door.

“What took you so long?”

Zoro shrugged, placing his swords against the building. The seasalt air clung hard to his soul, and he found it easier to breathe.

“I was looking for a cook, not some religious cave hermit. Since when do you read the future?”

Sanji sighed, moving to help Zoro undo the straps on his leather armor. The action was so familiar they could have both pretended the separation had never happened. 

“I don't. Rumor started because I knew too much about the past. Had to leave the mainland or risk temples abducting me.”

Zoro leaned into his touch, breathing in his presence.

“And which past did you read too much into?”

The heavy shoulder guards thumped to the ground. Sanji looked at him with his ancient eyes, the ones that saw the worlds before and all the beginnings and ends. Eyes that had seen unimaginable things and held the weight of time and fate.

“All of them.”

The chest straps fall away, and Zoro moved quickly to embrace him, to hold him again and relish the rightness of having Sanji in his arms. His other half, connecting after a separation that was nothing for men who had lived centuries, but still as long as an eternity. Sanji kissed his cheek gently, breathing like he’d been holding his breath for a very long time. Zoro whispered softly against the pale skin.

“I missed you.”

Sanji smiled in answer. This was only the beginning of their 92nd life together. 

  
  


-oOo-

  
  


_ The story goes that fate and time once worked in unison. They planned and conceived of universes and outcomes that would entertain the stars, and of worlds that could be sculpted into impossible perfection. _

_ But it was when they came to mortals, they disagreed. Time had given them short lifespans, and fate found it cruel. So fate gave mortals love, giving beauty to their short lives.  _

_ When time seemed content with the insignificance mortals presented, fate played their hand and gave mortality a different path. For fate had always been the kinder of the two, and so created a lock to which love was the key.  _

_ And so it was love that allowed mortals to move throughout time, and continue on.  _

  
  
  


-oOo-

(40)

  
  


“Wait, what do you mean you’ve  _ never met _ .”

Zoro took a long drink from his cup, annoyed at the weakness of the wine. He turned to look at the bushy haired man with his peculiar long nose. He seemed familiar in a distant way. 

“Just what I said. We’ve never met.”

Long-nose stared at him a long while before slowly taking a sip of his own drink. He seemed to be struggling on what to say to Zoro. 

“But you- but you said you were in love with him? On a grand quest to, uh, meet up?”

Zoro took a pointedly long drink. He was only now just remembering why he never struck up conversations with strangers in bars. Still though, he had a long way to go based on a very vague letter that he was only partially sure was even from Sanji, and it wasn't like he had anything to lose by unloading on a stranger. 

“Yeah, well, we met in a past life. Lives. Soul mates and all that maybe. He’s usually a cook.”

Zoro expected long-nose to finish his drink in silence and then leave, but instead there was a small commotion beside him and the man leaned in way too close. Zoro leaned back, surprised and not entirely sure what to do at the look of astonishment in the other man’s eyes. 

“Really!? That’s so  _ cool _ ! You must have a crazy story, like, full of adventure and romance and  _ tragedy _ \- 

“Oi, my life’s not a story.”

The man seemed to sober at that, leaning back and looking embarrassed. He seemed good natured though, a timid smile on a kind face. 

“Sorry, it's just. It sounds really amazing is all.”

He grabbed onto his cup, taking an overly large sip like he was trying to hide. There was a moment of awkward silence as Zoro looked around. They were alone besides an old bartender and a sleeping drunk in the far corner. Zoro and Sanji had never really kept their history a secret, it was more so that it seemed unbelievable enough that talking about it would be pointless. It was their own history anyways, so who would be interested? Zoro looked at the strange man beside him again, with his bright eyes that seemed too young for someone traveling alone in such a large world. 

“It is. Do you want to hear it?”

Immediately the man leaned forward again, smile stretching wide. It reminded Zoro of how Sanji looked when he cooked. 

“Really? You’ll tell me?”

Zoro felt the weight of the letter in his pocket, heavy like everything was when Sanji wasn't by his side. Maybe bringing Sanji to where they were through words alone could relieve some of that weight. 

“Yeah. It’s a good story anyways.”

Later, when it was past the time when the bar should have closed, Zoro had to admit there wasn't an ending. He had to say that he hoped there would never be one. 

  
  
  


-oOo-

(413)

  
  


Sometimes there was an ache like a disease eating away at Sanji’s heart, and it was awful because the cure was simultaneously easy and hard. 

Of course Zoro got  _ lost _ . Zoro always got lost though, it wasn't new, but  _ still _ . They had their somewhat functioning inner compases showing the way and the weird rumors (who the fuck else had green hair and carried a bunch of swords?) but for shit sake. It was a waiting game and sometimes waiting was- hard.

There was always that fear that he wouldn't come. There was the crippling, hideous,  _ terrifying  _ fear that there would be a world where he, Sanji, woke up alone in and there would be no Zoro. Or maybe Zoro wouldn't remember. Or maybe he’d wait for 70 or 80 or 100 years, and Zoro wouldn't make it. If there was anything worse than not having Zoro by his side, it was that not knowing. But to have Zoro exist somewhere, not remembering, would he choose someone else? Sanji could only image drifting off into some sort of infinite where broken hearts break more and more until there's nothing left. 

He had entire lifetimes to look back on with comfort though. He could always retreat into those times of sweet kisses and tired mornings, where Zoro had been young and old all at once in his arms, snoring and ungraceful and soft. He could retreat into his mind and find Zoro there, his hand reaching for him so gently sometimes Sanji wanted to lay himself down and weep at a gentleness he had been offered. He could see Zoro, blood soaked and demonic, wiping the filth from Sanji’s own hands first after a battle as if he had been meant for only gentle things despite killing hundreds of men. 

Any day now, he thought. It should literally be any day now, and he would appear at the port and Sanji would know by the way he could breathe again. 

He must have fallen asleep, because the next time he woke up there was a knock at the door, and a voice so beautiful with it's familiarity he wasn't sure if he had even been alive before that moment. 

  
  


-oOo-

  
  
  


They didn't always live to be old, and the endings weren’t always perfect. Sometimes war broke out, or an illness took one of them, or a goddamn volcano erupted in the middle of the night. But most times it was good and sweet, because they were together, and that was the only requirement for a decent life. 

There had only been one time when fate was unkind and they had not met. They had tried, but just on the cusp of reunion they had each met tragedy. But fate was remorseful, and so in the next life they had been born as neighbors, and lived unseparated for a full life. 

They had their favorites, of course. For Zoro it was when they had lived as outlaws, fighting side by side against an entire empire with half-formed militias. For Sanji it was when they had lived in a palace, causing scandal with the rugged soldier bedding the queens favorite chef. 

Sometimes Sanji found Zoro, and sometimes Zoro found Sanji. Sometimes they remembered everything from their very birth, and sometimes it didn't come to them until they were adults. Twice they had come across each other only by chance, memories returning when their eyes met. Sanji found it romantic. Zoro got headaches from the rush. 

“I wonder where we began though. Can you remember? So many lifetimes but I can't see the first one.”

Zoro just shrugged. He was far too content running his hand along Sanji’s bare shoulder to care about another lost past. 

And so it went on.

  
  
  
  


-oOo-

(716)

  
  


“It's your turn next time.”

Zoro kissed his brow, the soft wrinkles proof of accomplishment. They had lived this one long. 

“Yeah.” He said. “I’ll find you first next time.”

  
  
  
  


-oOo-

(70)

  
  
  


Zoro had never been drawn to anyone before. He had lived modestly, serving a king he had never met and lowering his head when necessary. But there was a man who walked through the halls, and it was nearly painful to restrain himself from following and  _ looking _ . 

He had begun to insist on his position in the palace, on where he stood at what times. He felt ridiculous doing it but then- he came. Quiet footsteps approaching, and wasn't it strange to like someone’s footsteps? Zoro’s chest hurt with something like an ache, and when he looked up his first thought was  _ beautiful.  _ Somehow he had known this stranger would be beautiful. 

And then the memories came, and stranger couldn't have been a more opposite word. He suddenly knew every aspect of every detail of every possibility of  _ everything  _ about Sanji. He knew what it was like to wake up in his presence, to fall asleep by his side, to laugh with him, to cry with him, to die and be born and live and live and live. He knew exactly what love was, and it was everything that came with Sanji, forever and through time. 

“Holy  _ shit _ , that's a rush.”

Zoro wasn't quite ready for speech himself. He just stared at Sanji, who stared back with his wide, knowing eyes. Zoro reached out, desperate, and pulled him into a crushing embrace. Sanji laughed quietly in his ear, wrapping his arms securely around his back and whispering  _ I love you _ for the first time in their 70th lifetime. 

  
  
  


-oOo-

(120)

  
  


“What’s your name?”

Zoro looked up. He’d been working on his tree fort all day, but it didn't look as cool as he thought it’d be. The boy looking at him seemed to have come from nowhere, dirt spread over the bridge of his nose like fake war paint and fluffy blonde hair adorned with dead leaves. Zoro thought he looked a bit like a fairy. 

“I’m Zoro.”

“Oh. I knew that.”

Zoro squinted at him. If he knew, why did he ask? 

“Well what's  _ your _ name?”

The boy smiled, all teeth and red cheeks. A leaf fluttered from his hair, and Zoro trotted over to pick it up. 

“I’m Sanji.”

Zoro looked at him for a moment, images of things he wasn't quite sure were his to remember coming back to him. He shrugged them off.

“Well I knew that too. Wanna make a fort?”

Sanji laughed, a sound like little bells and bird calls. Zoro figured if fairies were real, Sanji was probably one, so he’d be good at forts. 

“Yeah!”

The fort wasn't much, but it turned out Sanji knew how to make peanut butter sandwiches. They ate in his kitchen and planned on making castles out of mud, and worlds out of dreams. 

  
  
  


-oOo-

(179)

  
  
  


Sanji had an arrow sticking through his shoulder. 

“San-

“Shut up. You shouldn't be talking.”

Zoro didn't care. He knew it was bad by the way he had stopped feeling the pain, and he’d felt death so many times by now. But it was the way blood pooled over Sanji’s shirt, the way his eyes were slow blinking and sweat beaded at his brow. 

“The arrow-

“I said shut  _ up _ .”

Zoro stared at the wooden shaft sticking from the pale skin like if he glared hard enough maybe he could will it away. Sanji’s cold fingers brushed through his hair, calming him even now. 

“S’poisoned. I'm not gonna last anyways.”

Zoro tried to sit up, but he couldn't He flopped his hand to the side, Sanji reaching for it immediately. 

“Lay down with me.”

He did. His lips stood out stark red against the unhealthy whitness in his skin. His hair was matted with dirt and blood, and he had a gash under his left eye. He faced Zoro on his back, and they held onto each other with the last of their strength. 

“Remember the time at that island, the one with the weird statues?”

Zoro nodded. His mouth was too dry to speak now. 

“There were flowers you brought me, the most beautiful things in the world. You never told me where you found them.”

Zoro felt his eyes closing. Sanji’s words were slowing and slurring, but he’d be the one to stay longer. Zoro held on, unwilling to leave him alone. 

“Grew on...the roof.”

Sanji made a sound like a small laugh. Zoro cracked an eye, desperate for one last look in this life that had been so much harder than usual. 

“See you...in the next one.”

He could practically feel his heart about to stop. Beside him, Sanji slurred a response. Another lost  _ I love you _ that always found its way home and echoed somewhere between lifetimes. 

  
  


-oOo-

(203)

  
  


“I  _ hate _ holograms.”

Zoro was still doubled over, past the point of pretending to  _ not _ be laughing at Sanji’s misfortune. The blonde was on his ass, accepting his lack of dignity willingly. Passerbys gave them a wide berth.

“You’re laughing now but last week you almost punched an advertisement, marimo!”

Zoro wiped his eyes, still laughing. That advertisement had been motion sensor based, and he’d been distracted by Sanji’s very tight leather pants. Not that he would ever admit that. 

“You’re just a formalist. Admit it, you miss the ancient times.”

“I am not a  _ formalist _ . Who even taught you that word? You don't even know what that means, do you?”

Sanji had gotten up, patting himself down in search of his cigarettes. Today he was not wearing his tight leather pants, which was a true shame. He was, however, wearing a thigh holster, which Zoro found equally appealing. 

“Shut up, where's the ramen stand you said was here?”

Sanji grabbed his hand, pulling him down an alley to the right. 

“It's  _ this  _ way and you were wandering off again so it's  _ your _ fault I hit the robot thing.”

“I was just following your bad directions.”

“No, you were following my ass with your eyes.”

“Well then your ass should have given me better directions.”

Sanji looked over his shoulder to give him a withering look. Unfortunately a pixel traffic cone chose that moment to jump from the wall, helpfully reminding them of an upcoming intersection and making Sanji scream. 

“I fucking  _ hate _ holograms!”

Zoro decided he  _ loved  _ holograms.

  
  
  


-oOo-

  
  


They weren't always the same. Once, Zoro was a farmer who was very bad at harvesting. Sanji had grown up in universes where cooking was not his profession due to circumstance. They had seen worlds were magic was an everyday occurance. Sanji had seen love praised and love scorned for the exact same reason, just in different times. He’d joked with philosophers about transcending personalities and inborn habits. But memory of their past lives faded just enough that their knowledge of all things did not burden them, and so apathy of life never took hold. It was love, and the feeling of love, that remained strongly enough that the doors into the next lives stayed welcomingly open. Zoro would say it was their strength, their loyalty to one another. They would argue about gods and godhood and if  _ they _ were gods or not, but the fact remained that they passed a test set by fate, and never even knew it. 

  
  
  


-oOo-

(28)

  
  


“Please.” He said. 

He kneeled to the stars now, his bones starting to ache as his age betrayed him, and he begged. He was not so old that he was at risk of anything, but that was just the problem. Sanji raised his head higher, the night sky ecompasing his view. 

“Let me go to him.”

And this time it was not fate that took pity and gave kindness, but time. For time can cut short easily, and so time obliged. 

  
  
  


-oOo-

(381)

  
  
  


“Hey, have we met Luffy before?”

Zoro blinked at Sanji, then turned to look at the boy in question. Luffy was busy ruining his school shirt as he tried to climb a tree. Zoro turned back to Sanji, only 16 in this body.

“Dunno. He kinda feels familiar though.”

Sanji leaned to the side, resting his head on Zoro’s shoulder. Zoro felt silly for still getting butterflies in his stomach at the casual intimacies. When Sanji spoke he sounded distant, lost in a different life for one moment. 

“Do you think any of the people we’ve met before remember us the way we remember them?”

Zoro considered that. He wanted to say yes, but then again he was currently failing Latin and it had once been his first language. Time was tricky like that, and the only guarantee he ever had was Sanji. Sometimes everything else seemed so insignificant compared to the man he loved that it fell into the background. He looked at Luffy again, who was running around like nothing much more than an utterly happy kid who never did his homework. It pulled at something in his chest, just a little. 

“Not sure about that, but it's nice to see them again.”

Sanji hummed, then raised himself up and stretched. He leaned back down to kiss a spot near Zoro’s temple, and then shouted over at Luffy.

“Oi, Luffy! Want a bento?”

Zoro couldn't help but smile at the enthusiasm the boy showed. There was familiarity in it, like sun on his skin. He could already tell that in this world they would never be known as something like heroes or legends, but it would be kind. 

  
  
  


-oOo-

(55)

  
  
  


Zoro stopped the movement of his hands, confused and then worried at the quiet, wrong way that Sanji’s breath came. He moved back up the kiss-bitten torso to Sanji’s face, horrified to see tears falling down his flushed cheeks. 

“What’s wrong? Did I-

Sanji shushed him, his long fingers tracing Zoro’s cheek bones. 

“I’m fine, I just- remembered something.”

He let out an almost surprised sob, quickly sitting up to cover his face. Zoro reached for the crumpled blanket on the edge of the bed, throwing it around Sanji’s shoulders and pulling him close. This happened sometimes- with remembering. Memories could be faded and rush back without prompting, sometimes vividly. Most were small. Some were heavy. 

“Which one?”

Sanji shook his head, still catching his breath. He trembled in Zoro’s arms, and they both sat quietly until the tremors calmed. Zoro kissed his salty cheek softly, elated to hear a small laugh in response. He was afraid of things that hurt Sanji and couldn't be killed.

“Sorry. I’m ok now.”

Zoro kissed him again, brushing his hair back from his face to make sure he was. His blue eyes looked sad, but not unbearably so. 

“Which one was it?”

Something in his face crumpled, and Zoro wanted to take back his words. They had promised to share this weight though.

“I wasn't with you. You died, and you were alone and in pain and I didn't get to tell you how much I loved you and you were  _ alone _ -

He cut himself off, hiding his face in Zoro’s shoulder. His fingers dug into Zoro’s skin, as if holding him any closer could dispel the memory of what happened. 

Zoro couldn't remember the time with real clarity, but it was in the back of his mind. His only private saving grace had been that it had been him and not Sanji. There was always the reassurance of seeing him again, but death in every life was never without it's harshness. It was a cruel thing, to leave his body behind for Sanji to deal with, and it was crueler still that Sanji thought he himself was worth blame. 

Sanji’s head shot up again, large tears still rolling down his face. His eyes were vidi, red-rimmed and beautiful because he could never be anything but beautiful. 

“I don't think I’ll ever know how to properly tell you how much I love you. I can't even remember all the languages, I can't think of how to  _ say  _ it. How am I supposed to make sure you know?”

Zoro could never answer that though. He’d gone through the same thing himself so often, telling Sanji  _ I love you _ and then going on wondering  _ but do you know _ ? And of course Sanji couldn't know, because Zoro just didn't have words to convey that type of feeling. He could say he loves Sanji a million times, he almost has, but it didn't fulfill the amount. It was like the errant thoughts that’d come, like where he wants to drag a sword through his own stomach just to see all the blood in his body and test how it feels to walk empty. He’d never do it, and he won't say it, and there's a meaning behind it like how there's a meaning behind everything. There's no right way for him to tell Sanji he wants to steal the way he smiles and keep it in a jar to stare at forever, especially when it sounds so close to violence. There's even less a way to convey what  _ that _ means. He finds the most common route is to press himself against the man, his head in his neck and his hands in his hands and then closer still, hoping that maybe if they were one person all his thoughts could slip into Sanji’s mind. It's a closeness he wouldn't mind- sharing thoughts. He liked to think itd be nice to have a hum of  _ peel the carrots and set the timer for 7 minutes, tell the delivery guy to fuck off and kill whoever interupts me at this very moment _ . Maybe he can already hear his thoughts. He wondered what Sanji would do with his, maybe try to swat them away like flies. Would Sanji suddenly stumble over his own feet, face reddening as he caught slips of Zoro’s admiration? They could laugh together at a stray idea or a weird dream and never speak a word. They could love each other at an intimacy that didn't exist. 

He looked at Sanji, skin still tear-streaked, and his hair uncombed and he was probably the most beautiful thing Zoro could have ever imagined. If Zoro had to think up something so perfect that it would knock him off his own feet, he’d see the image of Sanji, cooking or swearing or sleeping or  _ anything.  _ He’d see whatever Sanji was beside him in that moment, and he’d probably never even be able to conceive anything better than that. 

“I know you love me because we’re here.”

It wasn't profound or even completely helpful, but they  _ were _ there. Their existence in a new life was proof, and that was something. Sanji moved even closer somehow, closing his eyes like Zoro had somehow given him some sort of peace with his half-empty answer. Zoro kissed him, so softly he felt a part of himself slip right out of his own body and fall back into other lives. Sanji relaxed his grip, moving his fingers to spell out words on his skin, trying to spell out that love that couldn't be spoken. 

“I love you, Sanji. I  _ love _ you.”

Sanji shook in the gentle way that told Zoro he was crying again. Zoro closed his own eyes, squeezing them tight against the burn there, the companion tears to Sanji’s. He had to wonder if humans were meant to love so enormously, if their bodies could hold all of it or if they would die because it was too much. He was tempted to ask the stars, but the stars so rarely answered anyone. 

“ _ Zoro _ .”

His name, said with a conviction passed down through other existences- if ever there was a sound of love in raw, that was it. 

  
  
  


-oOo-

(9)

  
  
  


“What would you do if you couldn't find me?”

Zoro didn't need to think about his answer to that. 

“I would find you.”

Sanji frowned, tapping out nonsense on Zoro’s wrist with his fingers. He listened to the occasional jump of pulse, the breath of life. 

“But what if you  _ couldn't _ ?” 

Sanji nearly yelled at the sudden movement, surprised to have Zoro’s face so close to his own. He pressed his forehead to Sanji’s, words steady and firm. 

“I would find you, no matter what.”

And he did. 

  
  


-oOo-

(604)

  
  


Zoro thinks it should be easier to find Sanji. All he should really have to do was search for a man with sun-kissed gold hair and vivid blue eyes who made up a picture so beautiful  _ everyone  _ took notice. Sanji was always made beautiful, maybe by fate’s blessing, maybe just by his own kindness. When he smiled it was breathtaking, and he held influence in every life with that smile. He’d been sought by royals before, intent on collecting him like he was a prize, or sometimes for marriage. Zoro would worry about him being taken as a concubine if not for his ever-present  _ fuck you _ attitude and matching foot to the face. Sanji had been sent as a gods offering once, chosen like a piece of jewelry for a made up divinity. Funny how when no great hand of god reached down to show gratefulness the people rejected Sanji as a sin just for being born pretty. But Sanji had been centuries old in his soul by then, and he was content to watch while Zoro worried and held his swords still. With his beauty, Sanji carried compassion for all life which only grew with his years. It made Zoro wonder about true divinity, and if there ever was someone meant for it, wasn't it Sanji? Didn't all humans want a god in their image, if not beautiful, with a gentle touch? 

Sanji just laughed at him. 

“And what of you? Are you not kind? Feeding stray dogs and smiling at bird songs? You have painted an image of yourself in your mind, and it doesn't fit the truth.”

Zoro looked down at his hands, confused. They were rough, always were, promised callouses from wars and brawls and plain survival. He touched his face, his short hair, his scar-covered arms. Sanji took his hand, shaking his head in amusement. 

“Our beauty rests in our souls, and is seen in our eyes. You never share yours with the people around you, and so they cannot see it.”

_ Oh,  _ he thinks. Of course no one would see his (if he really had any). He only ever had eyes for Sanji, only wanted to look at Sanji, find Sanji. He reserved everything for his other half, worried he only had a limited amount compared to the abundance of the other. His kindness was not for an entire world, and again he wondered why  _ he _ deserved to even be with Sanji, when Sanji was the one always giving. If Zoro was ever compared to a god, he was the one put beside the devils and the war hungry beings. 

“What troubles you now?”

Sanji’s soft touch brought him back, startling him. All over again he was caught by his handsome face, his striking eyes. It was true that looking in his eyes he could see a past with depth too far for comprehension, and it was entirely too gorgeous. 

“It’s so easy to love you, but I cannot imagine what you see in me.” 

Sanji took his face in his hands, turning him more fully. Looking into his eyes directly like that, he could see the clear-cut images of their pasts. Flickers of thousands upon thousands of moments where they had met, had reunited, had kissed and cried and become alive. 

“Everything, Zoro.”

Hundred and millions of times they had sat together like this, and felt a love so profound that one lifetime couldn't contain it. 

  
  


-oOo-

  
  
  


_ Time approached fate with yet another argument.  _

_ Time claimed that the love transcended by soul-tied mortals only came to being by their memories, and challenged fate to erase them as a test. If those reborn in a new life forgot their previous ones, surely they would not return to their previous love as well.  _

_ Fate accepted this challenge, with the condition that the love entwined souls still meet in their new world. They would have the opportunity to either fall in love, or not, and that would decide their place in times hands.  _

_ And so a baby was born as Sanji Vinsmoke, and he had no idea that this was his 17th time being born into royalty.  _

  
  
  


-oOo-

  
  


In the world of the Grandline and a pirate king named Luffy, mortal men named Sanji and Zoro rested in a bunk too small for two grown men. There was a gull cry from somewhere far off, and Sanji cracked an eye open. 

“‘Fate created love so that mortality could be bearable, and so time allowed love to be eternal.’”

Zoro moved his head further into the crook of Sanji’s neck, kissing the skin with fluttering eyelashes. 

“What’s that from?”

Sanji yawned, shuffling just enough to press his face into the soft green hair. Zoro’s arms around his waist made the bed warm and safe. 

“Dunno. Just remembered it from somewhere.”

Zoro hummed, listening to the sound of Sanji’s pulse.

“Guess you’re stuck with me forever then.”

Sanji smiled into the hair. Zoro still smelled like the tangerine grove from an earlier nap.

“Doesn't sound so bad.”

  
He closed his eyes, drifting off to the echoes of  _ I love you  _ passed down from fate and time. 


End file.
